Marked for David Lopes
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match3 Nov 2029
After 10 games, Åsane finally taste it again
The first defeat in 10 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Lyn; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Squad5 Nov 2029
18 goals and a season average of 7.30. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad5 Nov 2029
A falling-out at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom5 Nov 2029
Åsane counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Åsane now.
Squad5 Nov 2029
A row about effort at Åsane
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sander Kilen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match3 Nov 2029
A bad afternoon for Åsane against Lyn
1‑2 to Lyn, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings5 Nov 2029
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout5 Nov 2029
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout5 Nov 2029
Nobody at Åsane will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match20 Oct 2029
9 unbeaten for Åsane
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 9 matches without defeat is a foundation Åsane did not have in the autumn.
Squad22 Oct 2029
Sander Kilen is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.29 with 17 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad22 Oct 2029
Tempers go at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match20 Oct 2029
It finished 2‑0, and it was Samuel Burakovsky’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Åsane.
Player ratings22 Oct 2029
Marked 8.64 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings22 Oct 2029
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.03, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad22 Oct 2029
The medical room confirms 26 days on the sidelines for Kristian Hauge, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
The dugout22 Oct 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Sander Ryerson kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Player ratings22 Oct 2029
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings8 Oct 2029
Successful dribbles: 42. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match6 Oct 2029
Nobody wins at Åsane
21 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The dugout8 Oct 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Åsane may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match6 Oct 2029
8 unbeaten for Åsane
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Åsane did not have in the autumn.
Boardroom8 Oct 2029
Belts tighten at Åsane
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Sander Kilen falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad8 Oct 2029
A falling-out at Åsane
Vasco Tritten and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings8 Oct 2029
A mark of 7.45, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout8 Oct 2029
Tord Salte gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match7 Jul 2029
Åsane make home a hard place to visit
16 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings9 Jul 2029
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.88, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match7 Jul 2029
Still nobody has beaten Åsane
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mads Eikrem Myklebust is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom9 Jul 2029
Wages swallow 151% of the Åsane income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Match7 Jul 2029
It finished 2‑0, and it was Sander Kilen’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Åsane.
Squad9 Jul 2029
A falling-out at Åsane
Longin Bimai and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout9 Jul 2029
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑0, already talking about the next one.
Squad9 Jul 2029
João Sérgio falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom19 Mar 2029
Pressure builds in the Åsane boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market19 Mar 2029
Herman Kleppa hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Åsane can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Tempers go at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Words at Åsane training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sander Kilen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Transfer targets19 Mar 2029
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad19 Mar 2029
A muscle injury sidelines Herman Kleppa for 18 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Åsane will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Transfer targets19 Mar 2029
Åsane have made the call to Valerenga. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets19 Mar 2029
A loan enquiry to Kristiansund: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets19 Mar 2029
Sogndal have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Jan 2029
Åsane are in real trouble now
Position 14, 29 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad15 Jan 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Åsane this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Words at Åsane training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Krasovskiy is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout15 Jan 2029
The manager makes an example of Herman Kleppa
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market15 Jan 2029
3 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Åsane could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Ruben Riise has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market8 Jan 2029
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Åsane, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 Jan 2029
A falling-out at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words at Åsane training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eirik Haugan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad8 Jan 2029
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Åsane would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The dugout8 Jan 2029
Sebastian Koch without the man who signed him
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Sebastian Koch was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
The dugout8 Jan 2029
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Henos Yohannes is on it.
The dugout8 Jan 2029
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Market8 Jan 2029
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces1 Jan 2029
The mood at Åsane has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market1 Jan 2029
Amund Sundsøy hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Åsane can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom1 Jan 2029
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words exchanged at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Eirik Haugan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad1 Jan 2029
The captaincy has been taken off Eirik Haugan. Åsane will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Squad1 Jan 2029
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Åsane has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The dugout1 Jan 2029
Sebastian Koch loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Sebastian Koch's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Market1 Jan 2029
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Åsane, another week without a signature from David Lopes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom27 Nov 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Åsane
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Tempers go at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad27 Nov 2028
A row about effort at Åsane
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eirik Haugan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
The manager makes an example of Herman Kleppa
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
Tord Salte knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tord Salte trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market27 Nov 2028
1 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Åsane could get for him.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Boardroom27 Nov 2028
The Åsane production line keeps running
23 graduates out of an academy now rated 7 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match4 Nov 2028
The wait goes on for Åsane
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Boardroom6 Nov 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Match4 Nov 2028
Åsane cannot find the net
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lucas Myklebust is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words exchanged at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad6 Nov 2028
A row about effort at Åsane
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eirik Haugan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad6 Nov 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tord Salte and Åsane agree another 4 years.
Market6 Nov 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Åsane, another week without a signature from Eirik Haugan.
Player ratings6 Nov 2028
Nobody could get near Giba Sesay
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Oct 2028
A falling-out at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Åsane training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eirik Haugan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Åsane are still strangers to each other
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Looking ahead16 Oct 2028
Åsane take on the side everybody is chasing
Sandefjord arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Åsane will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
Magnus Mehl gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Magnus Mehl is on it.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
Adama Traoré asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market16 Oct 2028
The clock does Alexey Gorodovoy’s negotiating for him
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Åsane could ask drops and the wages Alexey Gorodovoy can ask rise.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Sep 2028
Alexey Gorodovoy damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Tempers go at Åsane
Charlie McCann was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Alexey Gorodovoy is on it.
Squad11 Sep 2028
A row about effort at Åsane
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and João Sérgio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad11 Sep 2028
No place for Giba Sesay in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Åsane are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Looking ahead11 Sep 2028
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Tord Salte’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Åsane needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Market11 Sep 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Åsane know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market11 Sep 2028
4 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Åsane could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom14 Feb 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Åsane
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market14 Feb 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Åsane training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Peter Reinhardsen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Raufoss have kept their man, and Åsane go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad14 Feb 2028
A falling-out at Åsane
Nobel Tesfazgyi Gebrezgi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
A loan move for Julius Ødegaard is in the works
Åsane have made the call to KFUM Oslo. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad14 Feb 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Åsane can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad14 Feb 2028
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Lasse Thomsen out for 88 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hødd will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market17 Jan 2028
Only the photograph left for David Lopes
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Lopes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Hødd the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words exchanged at Hødd
Sondre Fosnæss Hanssen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad17 Jan 2028
A row about effort at Hødd
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Brandal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout17 Jan 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mathias Blårud, and the manager let it.
The dugout17 Jan 2028
Mirza Mulac asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.